Ottawa

Ottawa is the national capital, and it carries the ceremony well: Parliament Hill above the Ottawa River, the Rideau Canal through the centre of town and the national museums within walking distance of one another. For Canadians it is a city of first visits and family milestones, from the tulips of May to skating on the canal in the depth of winter.

Ottawa was a lumber town called Bytown when Queen Victoria chose it as the capital of the Province of Canada in 1857, and it became the federal capital at Confederation in 1867. Parliament Hill stands on a limestone bluff above the Ottawa River, with Gatineau and Québec on the opposite bank; the Rideau Canal, opened in 1832 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2007, runs through the heart of the city.

The national institutions give the city its weight: the National Gallery of Canada in Moshe Safdie’s glass-and-granite building, the Canadian Museum of History across the river, the National Arts Centre and the Canadian War Museum. The ByWard Market, one of the oldest public markets in the country, supplies the restaurants and much of the city’s evening life, and Gatineau Park begins only minutes from Parliament.

May brings the Canadian Tulip Festival, rooted in the bulbs the Netherlands has sent every year since the Second World War in thanks for sheltering its royal family. Summer is warm and often humid, with Canada Day on 1 July, Ottawa Bluesfest in July and evening walks along the canal locks below Parliament. September and October colour Gatineau Park and the Ottawa Valley.

Winter is long and cold, and Ottawa makes the most of it. When the ice is ready, the Rideau Canal Skateway opens as a skating route through the centre of the city, and Winterlude fills the first weekends of February with ice sculpture and snow playgrounds on both sides of the river. Spring and late autumn are quieter, the best seasons for the galleries and the National Arts Centre.

Fairmont Château Laurier, opened by the Grand Trunk Railway in 1912, stands beside Parliament Hill and the locks of the Rideau Canal, its turrets and copper roofs as much a part of the capital’s skyline as the Peace Tower. A few minutes’ walk away, in the ByWard Market itself, Andaz Ottawa ByWard Market brings a contemporary house to the city, with a rooftop bar on its top floor looking towards Parliament and the river.

The two make a natural pair: the grand hotel for the ceremony of the capital, the Andaz for the market and the evenings. LVXVRY books the Château Laurier through Accor Preferred and the Andaz through Hyatt Privé — at the official hotel rate, with the privileges each programme attaches to the stay.